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Updated: June 22, 2025
I have no news to send you from hence; for everything seems suspended, both in the court and in the parliament, till Lord Chatham's return from the Bath, where he has been laid up this month, by a severe fit of the gout; and, at present, he has the sole apparent power.
Charles Townshend has now the sole management of the House of Commons; but how long he will be content to be only Lord Chatham's vicegerent there, is a question which I will not pretend to decide. There is one very bad sign for Lord Chatham, in his new dignity; which is, that all his enemies, without exception, rejoice at it; and all his friends are stupefied and dumbfounded.
For your born King will generally have, if not "all Europe against him," at least pretty much all the Universe. Chatham's course to Kingship was not straight or smooth, as Friedrich, too, had his well-nigh fatal difficulties on the road. Again, says the Plutarch, they are very brave men both; and of a clearness and veracity peculiar among their contemporaries.
Danton was of the Herculean type of a Luther, though without Luther's deep vision of spiritual things; or a Chatham, though without Chatham's august majesty of life; or a Cromwell, though without Cromwell's calm steadfastness of patriotic purpose.
In 1766 he became First Lord of the Treasury in Lord Chatham's Ministry, resigning in January, 1770; and in 1771 Lord Privy Seal in Lord North's Government, stipulating at the same time that he should not be "summoned to any Cabinet." He resigned in 1775, but joined the Rockingham Ministry in 1782 as Lord Privy Seal.
Round him gathered a party, small in number, but strong in great and various talents. Lord Camden, Lord Shelburne, Colonel Barré, and Dunning, afterwards Lord Ashburton, were the principal members of this connection. There is no reason to believe that, from this time till within a few weeks of Chatham's death, his intellect suffered any decay.
Still more clearly was Chatham's son, the most incapable of war ministers, driven to the capture of sugar islands by his inability to take part, otherwise than by subsidies, in the decisive struggle on the Continental fields. This may deserve the attention of those who do not think it criminal to examine the policy of Empire.
Lord Chatham's policies were likely to be his own; and in the present case, so far as America was concerned, they were not such as could be readily associated with Mr. Townshend's views, so far as those views were known or were not inconsistent.
If it was the first military scheme of any Quaker, let it be remembered it was also the first successful expedition of this war, and one of the first that ever was carried on according to the pacifick system of the Quakers, without the loss of a drop of blood on either side. If there was no bloodshed, it was by good luck, for 'a regular engagement was warmly maintained on both sides. It was a Quaker, then, who led the van in the long line of conquests which have made Chatham's name so famous.
"When Nettie went out to tea, we made as much noise as we liked," said Freddy, "but there was papa there. Now there's only mamma, and she's so cross. I hate Chatham mamma is always crossest when Chatham's there. What do you want to talk to people for, Nettie? Come in, and say there's to be toast, and let us have tea."
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